- In the Parks
- Yes
In 2022, in the midst of the pandemic era of the parks, cavalcades continued on even with the return of the Festival of Fantasy(which we already knew how its return turned out anything but magical), in the midst of what would be considered to be the world’s most magical marketing gimmick, which was the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World that was severely reduced from the pre pandemic plans, where we were greeted to a new Mickey and Pals 50th cavalcade that had pretty much no purpose, but sadly character meets were still suspended at that time(and were still socially distanced).
But in February 2022, there was an all new cavalcade that would bring some unique character magic to life, and that was the Disney Adventure Friends Cavalcade, that was announced at the 2021 Destination D event alongside other new and returning entertainment at that time, it the pandemic era Cavalcades were here to stay for the foreseeable future at the time, now featuring 30 adventurous Disney friends that are a mix of a selected few from previous cavalcades(the Princess one, the Fantasyland/Magic Kingdom Friends one, and the Goofy/Disney Friends one), furry friends, and characters that were relevant in 2001 and 2017, including the first ever WDW appearance of Miguel from Pixar’s 2017 fan favorite Coco.
The characters that were featured for the cavalcade’s first few months were:
Miguel (from Coco)
Woody & Jessie (from the Toy Story franchise)
Mr. & Mrs. Incredible (from The Incredibles)
Moana
Merida (from Brave, whose unit was booted out of the Festival of Fantasy parade)
Elena of Avalor (they really wanted to market the queen of Avalor at the parks this badly since the parks reopened, even though the series has ended in 2020 and is no longer in reruns, a surprise in deed when they took out her good friend, Sofia the First out of the parks in 2019, before the pandemic)
Pocahontas
Mulan
Meeko (Pocahontas’ raccoon friend)
Timon (from The Lion King)
Terk (from Tarzan)
Baloo & Louie (from The Jungle Book)
Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Genie (from Aladdin)
Nick Wilde & Judy Hopps (from Zootopia)
Clarabelle Cow (who was just a temporary placeholder for another character who came later in the year)
José & Panchito
Marie (from The Aristocats)
Max (Goofy’s son)
Stitch
Mary Poppins and Bert
It would change in June, when it was announced that after the monster success of a new animated classic on Disney Plus after its disappointing box office performance due to the pandemic(which is obvious), Encanto, Mirabel Madrigal would join the fun on June 26th of 2022, but who would Mirabel replace?, Elena?, because her popularity is pretty much nonexistent after the final episode, Merida?, because her unit was supposed to return to the big FOF parade, before it was confirmed that the float wouldn’t return, or would it be the placeholder, Clarabelle Cow?
The answer…?, it was Clarabelle that would leave to make way for Mirabel, and the mini parade was at an all time high, it bought more people to this fun filled entertainment offering.
But in November, it would change again when Raya made a surprise, unannounced appearance that would be permanent, so with that said, what changes happened at that time..?
THEY BOOTED MOANA OFF THE FLOAT ON A DAILY BASIS, AND NOT REPLACE EITHER MERIDA OR ELENA(especially the latter who has no future as her series wrapped up and yet nobody at Disney gives a hoot about that, when no reruns are scheduled for Disney Channel or the Disney Jr channel thanks to endless Bluey, PJ Masks, and the pre-K Mickey reruns, and not enough time for Elena to shine, and unless a movie(likely an origin story) is in production, there’s no point of still having her in the parks(with no dolls or pins sold and barely any merchandise sold of her likeness like her dress and tiara) especially since she was a spin-off of Sofia the First who already left WDW in 2019 as her series wrapped up and popularity declined, and was replaced by the Disney Female equivalent of Caillou.., Fancy Nancy..(on a side note, I hope Nancy leaves DHS within the next few months, not because her series wrapped up in 2022, but she’s by far the worst DJR character currently at WDW), FROM THE CAVALCADE WITH RAYA, the entertainment department just made a lazy move to just boot off arguably one of the company’s most marketable characters from a parade float and not boot off one of the less marketable characters for a new character(or made Merida walk permanently rather than once a while like for the month of May for Pacific Asian Month or this past September for Latina Month), and worse of all, they booted off Marie for a few months and the cavalcade kept making a left towards the end of the route near the fire station and NOT make a right towards the train station like with the big parade and the so called 50th cavalcade that shouldn’t have existed, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing to come from the entertainment department, as things were much worse with the big Festival of Fantasy parade, and that is the least of our problems as they’re not going to be resolved.
Nothing changed for the next few months, aside from King Louie being permanently booted from the cavalcade with the return of Marie.
But in September, more big changes came to this cavalcade with Mirabel being replaced with Bruno as Mirabel started her daily appearances in Fantasyland, and Bruno began to appear in the upbeat cavalcade all to the joy of fans of the movie.
And that was the last change as of this writing, and I got to be brutally honest…, this shouldn’t exist anymore, I’m sorry, it definitely lost its charm for sure, and for the following reasons..
1-Rare friends that you can only see in this cavalcade on WDW property, where guests cannot meet Nick & Judy, Raya, Bruno, etc. and yet guests can instead meet Fancy “Caillou” Nancy
2-The selection.., I mean, it’s a mixed bag, where some fit the adventure genre like the princesses, Aladdin, José & Panchito, etc, but others who don’t fit like the furry friends(and Clarabelle Cow was only a placeholder for Mirabel) or just not really that relevant nowadays
3-Badly executed changes, like the choice of making Moana walk when she’s way more popular than Raya, who was supposed to replace Elena or make Merida walk permanently(that change only happens for the month of May for Asian Month and September/October for Latina month), and the choice for Mirabel to no longer be in this cavalcade when Bruno joined and yet they let Elena stayed even though her popularity is nonexistent since her series wrapped up(she’s only there because she’s the only Latina princess in Disney’s history), and whoever made that change should just be fired, because I know Josh D’Amaro didn’t oversee this, it wasn’t his fault, he doesn’t oversee entertainment, he’s the chairman of the parks division
4-Wasted opportunity to NOT have characters from Up, Owl House, DuckTales, Onward, and obvious choices like Buzz Lightyear(the Toy Story version, not the version that nobody went to see) and Hercules in this cavalcade, as they all fit the adventure genre perfectly well, as criticisms from guests knew that fact that Dug and Russell weren’t there
5-Can we NOT pair Woody up with Jessie at both Magic Kingdom(in this mini parade) and Hollywood Studios(as a daily meet and greet) at the same freakin’ time…, my god, I know they’re friends and all, but.., this needs to be addressed
6-The choice of not letting this be seen from the Main Street station due to the cavalcade turning left rather than right is a terrible choice made by someone, like it’s the old Move It, Shake It street parties that used to happen, let more guests watch it from the station when it takes a right turn like it did in 2022, when the station was closed off to guests due to the railroad being closed due to Tron construction
7-Even if it does have its fans and appeal to those who want to see their favorite characters not in a lengthy line even with the flaws that I just mentioned, I think it’s best to wrap this up and send it to Defunctland
With a cavalcade that was just a mix of two pandemic era cavalcades into one big mini-parade that managed to last two years, that even with fun characters you can’t find anywhere else on WDW property, it just isn’t worth checking out anymore
But in February 2022, there was an all new cavalcade that would bring some unique character magic to life, and that was the Disney Adventure Friends Cavalcade, that was announced at the 2021 Destination D event alongside other new and returning entertainment at that time, it the pandemic era Cavalcades were here to stay for the foreseeable future at the time, now featuring 30 adventurous Disney friends that are a mix of a selected few from previous cavalcades(the Princess one, the Fantasyland/Magic Kingdom Friends one, and the Goofy/Disney Friends one), furry friends, and characters that were relevant in 2001 and 2017, including the first ever WDW appearance of Miguel from Pixar’s 2017 fan favorite Coco.
The characters that were featured for the cavalcade’s first few months were:
Miguel (from Coco)
Woody & Jessie (from the Toy Story franchise)
Mr. & Mrs. Incredible (from The Incredibles)
Moana
Merida (from Brave, whose unit was booted out of the Festival of Fantasy parade)
Elena of Avalor (they really wanted to market the queen of Avalor at the parks this badly since the parks reopened, even though the series has ended in 2020 and is no longer in reruns, a surprise in deed when they took out her good friend, Sofia the First out of the parks in 2019, before the pandemic)
Pocahontas
Mulan
Meeko (Pocahontas’ raccoon friend)
Timon (from The Lion King)
Terk (from Tarzan)
Baloo & Louie (from The Jungle Book)
Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Genie (from Aladdin)
Nick Wilde & Judy Hopps (from Zootopia)
Clarabelle Cow (who was just a temporary placeholder for another character who came later in the year)
José & Panchito
Marie (from The Aristocats)
Max (Goofy’s son)
Stitch
Mary Poppins and Bert
It would change in June, when it was announced that after the monster success of a new animated classic on Disney Plus after its disappointing box office performance due to the pandemic(which is obvious), Encanto, Mirabel Madrigal would join the fun on June 26th of 2022, but who would Mirabel replace?, Elena?, because her popularity is pretty much nonexistent after the final episode, Merida?, because her unit was supposed to return to the big FOF parade, before it was confirmed that the float wouldn’t return, or would it be the placeholder, Clarabelle Cow?
The answer…?, it was Clarabelle that would leave to make way for Mirabel, and the mini parade was at an all time high, it bought more people to this fun filled entertainment offering.
But in November, it would change again when Raya made a surprise, unannounced appearance that would be permanent, so with that said, what changes happened at that time..?
THEY BOOTED MOANA OFF THE FLOAT ON A DAILY BASIS, AND NOT REPLACE EITHER MERIDA OR ELENA(especially the latter who has no future as her series wrapped up and yet nobody at Disney gives a hoot about that, when no reruns are scheduled for Disney Channel or the Disney Jr channel thanks to endless Bluey, PJ Masks, and the pre-K Mickey reruns, and not enough time for Elena to shine, and unless a movie(likely an origin story) is in production, there’s no point of still having her in the parks(with no dolls or pins sold and barely any merchandise sold of her likeness like her dress and tiara) especially since she was a spin-off of Sofia the First who already left WDW in 2019 as her series wrapped up and popularity declined, and was replaced by the Disney Female equivalent of Caillou.., Fancy Nancy..(on a side note, I hope Nancy leaves DHS within the next few months, not because her series wrapped up in 2022, but she’s by far the worst DJR character currently at WDW), FROM THE CAVALCADE WITH RAYA, the entertainment department just made a lazy move to just boot off arguably one of the company’s most marketable characters from a parade float and not boot off one of the less marketable characters for a new character(or made Merida walk permanently rather than once a while like for the month of May for Pacific Asian Month or this past September for Latina Month), and worse of all, they booted off Marie for a few months and the cavalcade kept making a left towards the end of the route near the fire station and NOT make a right towards the train station like with the big parade and the so called 50th cavalcade that shouldn’t have existed, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing to come from the entertainment department, as things were much worse with the big Festival of Fantasy parade, and that is the least of our problems as they’re not going to be resolved.
Nothing changed for the next few months, aside from King Louie being permanently booted from the cavalcade with the return of Marie.
But in September, more big changes came to this cavalcade with Mirabel being replaced with Bruno as Mirabel started her daily appearances in Fantasyland, and Bruno began to appear in the upbeat cavalcade all to the joy of fans of the movie.
And that was the last change as of this writing, and I got to be brutally honest…, this shouldn’t exist anymore, I’m sorry, it definitely lost its charm for sure, and for the following reasons..
1-Rare friends that you can only see in this cavalcade on WDW property, where guests cannot meet Nick & Judy, Raya, Bruno, etc. and yet guests can instead meet Fancy “Caillou” Nancy
2-The selection.., I mean, it’s a mixed bag, where some fit the adventure genre like the princesses, Aladdin, José & Panchito, etc, but others who don’t fit like the furry friends(and Clarabelle Cow was only a placeholder for Mirabel) or just not really that relevant nowadays
3-Badly executed changes, like the choice of making Moana walk when she’s way more popular than Raya, who was supposed to replace Elena or make Merida walk permanently(that change only happens for the month of May for Asian Month and September/October for Latina month), and the choice for Mirabel to no longer be in this cavalcade when Bruno joined and yet they let Elena stayed even though her popularity is nonexistent since her series wrapped up(she’s only there because she’s the only Latina princess in Disney’s history), and whoever made that change should just be fired, because I know Josh D’Amaro didn’t oversee this, it wasn’t his fault, he doesn’t oversee entertainment, he’s the chairman of the parks division
4-Wasted opportunity to NOT have characters from Up, Owl House, DuckTales, Onward, and obvious choices like Buzz Lightyear(the Toy Story version, not the version that nobody went to see) and Hercules in this cavalcade, as they all fit the adventure genre perfectly well, as criticisms from guests knew that fact that Dug and Russell weren’t there
5-Can we NOT pair Woody up with Jessie at both Magic Kingdom(in this mini parade) and Hollywood Studios(as a daily meet and greet) at the same freakin’ time…, my god, I know they’re friends and all, but.., this needs to be addressed
6-The choice of not letting this be seen from the Main Street station due to the cavalcade turning left rather than right is a terrible choice made by someone, like it’s the old Move It, Shake It street parties that used to happen, let more guests watch it from the station when it takes a right turn like it did in 2022, when the station was closed off to guests due to the railroad being closed due to Tron construction
7-Even if it does have its fans and appeal to those who want to see their favorite characters not in a lengthy line even with the flaws that I just mentioned, I think it’s best to wrap this up and send it to Defunctland
With a cavalcade that was just a mix of two pandemic era cavalcades into one big mini-parade that managed to last two years, that even with fun characters you can’t find anywhere else on WDW property, it just isn’t worth checking out anymore
